Remember, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate.

Happy Birthday Robert Bunsen

Robert Bunsen, born March 31, 1811 was a German chemist known for perfecting the burner which bears his name.  While developing the field of emission spectroscopy, he co-discovered the elements cesium and rubidium along with Gustav Kirchhoff.

Test Tube Science: Test Tubesicles

Materials:
   -Five test tubes
   -Five barbecue skewers
   -50 mL of juice

Background:
These are fun to have on a warm afternoon.

Directions:
 Balance test tubes carefully in rack.  Fill carefully with juice.  Place in freezer for 20 minutes.  Using barbecue skewers or skinny popsicle sticks, place them upright in slushy mixture.  Freeze until firm.  Remove by running test tube very briefly under warm water.

Happy Birthday Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein, born March 14, 1879.

Happy Birthday Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, born March 13, 1733, was an English natural philosopher known for his discovery of oxygen.  As an avid supporter of the phlogiston theory, he called oxygen “dephlogisticated air” and fought against Lavoisier's characterization of it as an element.

Sodium. Water. Kablooie.

Sodium.  Water.  Kablooie.

Happy Birthday Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling, born February 28, 1901, was an American chemist known, for among other things, his work on the nature of the chemical bond which won him the 1954 Nobel Prize in chemistry (and the namesake of this blog).  He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his campaign against above ground nuclear testing.

Happy Birthday Johannes Brønsted

Johannes Brønsted, born February 22, 1879, was a Danish chemist who, in 1923, introduced the protonic theory of acid-base reactions.

Happy Birthday Henry Eyring

A Mexican-American theoretical chemist, born 1901, whose primary contribution was in the study of chemical reaction rates and intermediates. A prolific writer, he authored more than 600 scientific articles, 10 scientific books, and a few books on the subject of science and religion. The Eyring equation in chemical kinetics relates the reaction rate to temperature.



This equation follows from his transition state theory and is theoretically derived. Previous understanding of reaction rates and temperature came from Arrhenius’s empirically derived equation.

Test Tube Science: Sip Sip

This one is for younger kids.

Materials:
   -One clean test tube
   -Stuff to drink (juice, colored water [see Test Tube Science: Mouse Paint], and milk)
Background:
Encourage pouring skills by letting them drink everything they can pour into a test tube.

Directions:.
Lay a towel out on a low table or child’s play surface.  Fill a small pitcher or clean child’s toy teapot with water. Pour into the test tube and drink it down. Juice, colored water, and milk were some of our favorites.